The Choice
by Aniah
Summary: When Ares gives Xena the choice of giving him a child or losing Eve, it's not very hard to decide which path to take.
1. Negotiation

The Choice

The Choice

Aniah

A XWP fanfiction

Yo! This be my first XWP fanfic, and I'm really hyped about it. Based onthe eps "Revealations" and "Livia" Enjoy! [mailto:AniaHope@aol.com][1]

****Xena's POV*****

We glared at each other. Eve, or Livia, was standing to the side, breastplate heaving after fighting with me. Ares' eyes were burning with something…I refused to name the emotion. "Here's the deal, Xena." Everything around us began whirling, leaving me and him in the center of the vortex. Time had stopped.

I was still in fight stance, sword drawn. "You give me a child, the Olympians never need know who Livia really is." I restrained myself from retching. _You corrupted her. Played her. Trained her like me, and she was no longer Eve. I looked Ares straight in his black eyes._

"I would rather rot in hell." In a second he had me by the shoulders, that almost passive look on his face gone to a rage only the Gods could possess. I did not look away.

"I'm not asking, bitch! You give me what I want or your little Eve will be hunted by all of my relations!" I stepped back, holding my sword by two hands.

"The thought makes me sick," I spat at his boots. Ares raised a fist, like he would strike me, and was gone. Time resumed at it's normal pace. I blocked Livia. Gabrielle, Joxer, and Virgil were fending off her men. I threw the sword at her feet. "I don't want to fight," my daughter gave a roar of rage and leapt onto her mount. The other Roman soldiers followed suit, and were gone. 

I went back to the group. Virgil and his father scoured the gutted village for any living soul. There were none. "They'll be heading to the Temple of Eli," I guessed. "We'll move quickly." We left the ruined place behind us. 

***

"MY_NAME_IS_LIVIA!" She shouted. Parry. Parry. Thrust. Thrust. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gabrielle deal a stunning blow to a Roman captain. A strange, yet familiar feeling coursed through my gut. 

"So, Xena, how does it feel to know that the one you love despises you?" My daughter and I looked up at Ares' voice. With a vicious thrust I threw my sword into the earthen ground. 

"All…right," I breathed, knowing that everyone's eyes were on me. "If you get Livia to the Baptist I'll go with you." Supressing emotions that threatened to explode outward, I went and got astride Argo II. 

"Xena! Don't you know what you just did?!" Gabrielle was amazed. Joxer, dragging his sword, was too out of breath to say anything. Virgil was silent. 

"It would be her sacrifice, or mine," was all I would say. We made camp outside the small village where the Baptist lived. After everyone was in their bedrolls, I slipped away on the pretense of using the latrine. "C'mon out," I demanded. The sound of the forest at night greeted my ears. The moon was full, and it was almost bright as day. 

"What say we go somewhere more, civilized?" The God of War wheedled. 'We've got all the time in the world. Your friends, over there, will be sleeping for at least 10 hours, and Livia is safe with…a mutual friend." Ares grabbed my arm and we were transported to his mountain fortress. With pride he showed me the master bedchamber, hung with scarlet, black, scenes depicting the Trojan War and some Roman scenes. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked around critically. 

"It needs a woman's touch," I commented. THEN I noticed the absence of my chakram and sword. He must've noticed the change in my posture, because he put a caressing arm around my shoulder. I shrugged it off. "Why did you choose---Livia as your protégé?" I had almost called her Eve. _My name is LIVIA! My daughter's roar reverberated through my head. _

"You were dead. She was the best with a sword since you, or better! But I mourned for you every_single_day of the first mortal decade you were gone. Then it was time to move on. I needed someone else to train." I turned my back on him, and looked out at the silent mountainous night. Ares slipped the straps of my woven slip off of my shoulders, till it was pooled at my feet. A gown, deep emerald green, was slipped around my shoulders and buttoned up. He waved a gauntlet covered arm and a mirror hung in front of us. I stifled the familiar urge to elbow the God. His mouth was practically hanging open. I pulled him onto the pile of fur-covered cushions that served him as a bed…

****THIRD PERSON*****

_This…is bliss. The God of War thought dreamily, his arms around his princess's waist, her rhythmatic breathing like a lullabye. Carefully dislodging himself from the sleeping Xena, he vaulted himself out of their little nest and poured two goblets of watered down wine. Summoning a cloth-covered basket, he bit into a tart green apple. __But paradise never lasts, he chided himself. Just then, the sun rose, and Helios drew his chariot across the eastern sky with all his muted glory. Ares dressed, and Xena stirred. "Good morning," he smiled, and took another bite of the apple. _

Xena stretched like a mountain cat, and took a pear from the fruit bowl. She stared at it for a minute, and took a bite. "I'm going back, you know." Ares' eyes darkened. "You won't stop me. We have a deal." He absently threw the core of the apple over his shoulder, where it vanished.

"I won't. But what makes you think you'll be roaming the countryside fighting after this? How can you guarentee that our child will be safe when you're busy fighting petty thieves? No, Xena. You'll stay here with me, once you're satisfied with the condition of Eve's soul. I won't have my heir die by the hand of your enemy." Eyes widening, Xena backed away and found herself in the forest glade where she had first gone with Ares. Gabrielle, Joxer, and Virgil looked up from their breakfast; overcooked eggs a la Joxer.

"That SON OF A BITCH!" Xena threw her half-eaten pear on the ground. "Blackmailing me one child for another and then refusing to let me do my living! I swear by Hestia I wish I had stayed a virgin." The Warrior Princess mounted Argo, and, with the trio behind her, set off for the villiage where Livia/Eve's salvation was waiting.

***

so? There IS more to come. Q's? C's? [mailto:AniaHope@aol.com][1]

   [1]: mailto:AniaHope@aol.com



	2. Journey

The Choice: Chapter 1: The Journey

A Xena: Warrior Princess fanfiction

Aniah

mailto:AniaHope@aol.com

*  *  *

            I am SO SORRY everyone for my long writer's block. Er…it's still going on, but I'm hoping that if I get down to work it might…go away? One can only hope!

This story be also known as: THE XENA EUBONICS INTEGRATION. Heehee. I like bluntness.JJJJ

Disclaimers: I don't own anything but the plotline and my own thoughts. The rest belongs to…The Execs who made Xena and then killed it.

*  * **Xena's POV** *  *

            _One would think that Joxer could learn how to scramble a simple egg…_I got astride Argo II. Virgil, Joxer, Gabrielle, and a subdued EVE-not-LIVIA all followed me into the semi-abandoned village. Most of the people were at the waterfront, being blessed and cleansed against their past sins. Eve clung to me, her hair ratty, and tunic and leggings dirty. The kindly old shaman, a Priest of Eli, gently led my daughter into the clam waters. "with this abolution of Poseidon's blessed water, I pronounce you Free of all Sins and Corruption," she hugged him, and tears were falling down both her, my, and Gabrielle's cheeks.

            I put my arm around Eve, and led her back up the steep bank. "Let's get some decent clothes, all right?" I asked her. She put her head on my shoulder like she was only eight years old, and we rode back to Joxer's village and the inn he ran with Meg.

            My double came out and greeted her husband and son with a happy kiss and hug. "Who's this?" I introduced her to my daughter. "She looks like a friggin' train wreck," Meg commented with her usual bluntness.

            "What's a train wreck?" Gabrielle wondered. I was just thinking the same thing as the hostler took Argo and we went inside.

*  * **Ares**  *  *

            "What did you say?" the God of War took a sip of barley beer. A minor warlord was trembling below his dais, hat off, in one of Ares' temples between Athens and Amphipolis. 

            "I…I…My-men-and-I-didn't-get-there-in-time…" he rushed, falling to his knees. "Please, Great God of Bloodshed and Brains, don't hurt me!!" Ares rolled his eyes, wishing he were somewhere else.

            "Zeus-Poseidon-Hades," he swore under his breath, "go away. You bother me." He waved a hand and the unfortunate warlord got a fiery boot out of the temple. "Let's see where my paramour is now, shall we?" Ares asked himself, snapping his fingers. A shimmering vision solidified into a TV-like picture focusing on Xena, Gabrielle, and Livia sitting at one of the tables in Meg's tavern. "So now they're both on the side of peace and justice?" he was dubious that it would last long. "Well, I've fulfilled my side of the bargain, Xena, it's time you started on yours." Ares sat up, and in a purple mist, vanished.

***  * Xena *  ***

            "…And then, when I was ten, I saved a baby from a runaway herd of cattle!" Virgil paused in the tale of his childhood, with proud Meg and Joxer looking on. _He has Joxer's ego, Meg's half-wit cunning, and some type of courage I can't figure out where he got it from._ Wrenching myself from Meg, Joxer, and Virgil's presence, I dragged Gabrielle away from a pair of men from Gaul and Livia from a Hestian Virginal Priestess who was on her way to the nearest temple. We climbed the stairs to adjoining rooms. Gabrielle went into the smaller one. I tried to coax EVE-not-LIVIA onto the bed beside me, but she refused graciously and instead curled up on a pallet, tight as a kitten.

            I sat up for half an hour, reading an old scroll of Gabrielle's, from our travels in Chin, when a purplish mist I knew too well fortold of Ares' arrival. "Dammit, cantcha just leave us alone for a night?" I demanded, setting the scroll aside and turning away from where the God of War appeared, on the other side of the bed.

            "Awww, Xena, I thought you _liked_ me. Well, in any case, you're stuck with me. Of course, if you'd rather my sister Athena killed Eve in a fit of terror, well, that's your call, isn't it?" He bared his teeth. "By the way, Aphrodite says hi, and that we make a perfect couple!" I swatted Ares with the cushion I had been reclining against.

            "You S.O.B. Just stop rubbing it in, all right? I'm yours, we've comprehended that. Get over it," I stood up, preparing to go somewhere where I could sleep _without_ the presence of a divinity. 

            "Xena, where ya going? Xena? Oooh…that bitch is going to GET IT." Fists clenched, I stormed downstairs as Ares teleported away. I grabbed my sword and a rag and started to polish it furiously. Bleary-eyed, Gabrielle thumped down the rickety stairs.

            "I thought I heard the sound of divinity fuming," she yawned, and grabbed the kettle from behind Meg's counter. 

            "Yeah, well, screw him. Just because I'm probably carrying his kid doesn't mean I'm going to be his live-in. We can stay on the road till my seventh month, at least." 

            "How do you know you're pregnant, Xena?" Gabrielle wondered.

            "I just know." the side-kick left it at that. "Livia's asleep?" she nodded. "Fine, then. I guess I'll try again to get some sleep, as well. Night," the pissed-off Warrior Princess stretched, and stomped up the stairs.

            _I'd hate to be in her combat boots,_ Gabrielle thought sullenly. _Hey, wait, what ARE combat boots?_

*  *  *

            Thus, not long, but I thought it was funny! email me! AniaHope@aol.com ja ne!


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